Lord Zardoz
Explorer
For those that like them, Skill Challenges offer a way to resolve a scenario that is not combat based, but is also more dependent on the abilities of the character then they are on the ability of the ideas player, particularly when it is not possible or reasonable to resolve the problem by hitting it with an axe, talking, or running away. More importantly, they provide a definitive failure condition that is not necessarily death. Players are likely to keep talking and trying until they achieve perfect success.
To me the biggest problem with 4th Edition's Skill Challenges is that they have an alarming tendency to devolve into 'let the guy with the maxed skill for this challenge make every damn check'. Preventing that is critical to making them engaging.
Time limited challenges are good; someone said something about 5 successes within 3 rounds is better than 5 successes before 3 failures. I like that. The other way is to make sure that each failure has a concrete cost (ie, loss of HP or Healing Surge) and to require each player to make checks and require set number of success for each player present. If the guy who used Str as a stat dump for his Wizard is also required to make Athletics checks or suffer HP / Surge Loss, the group will start to brain storm ways for him to not fail his checks.
END COMMUNICATION
To me the biggest problem with 4th Edition's Skill Challenges is that they have an alarming tendency to devolve into 'let the guy with the maxed skill for this challenge make every damn check'. Preventing that is critical to making them engaging.
Time limited challenges are good; someone said something about 5 successes within 3 rounds is better than 5 successes before 3 failures. I like that. The other way is to make sure that each failure has a concrete cost (ie, loss of HP or Healing Surge) and to require each player to make checks and require set number of success for each player present. If the guy who used Str as a stat dump for his Wizard is also required to make Athletics checks or suffer HP / Surge Loss, the group will start to brain storm ways for him to not fail his checks.
END COMMUNICATION